Tuesday, 22 January 2013

Getting on the career ladder in 2013


Getting on the career ladder in 2013

The graduate job market remains intensely competitive. But if you're determined to succeed, these tips will help
Escalators at Copenhagen Underground station
Do you want to start your ascent into the professional world this year? Photograph: Alamy
If you want to make the most of the new year impetus and get onto the career ladder in 2013, here are some tips to help you on your way.

Before you start, know what and why

The single most important preparation for job-search success is to clarify what you're looking for, what you offer and why this particular job role and industry are right for you.
Complete the following statement: "By 2016, I want to be earning my living by doing X. I will be good at it because Y and it is the right job for me because Z."
It really doesn't matter if over the next 12-18 months you change your mind; just adjust your career plans accordingly. The benefit of clarity now is that you have an objective for your search and will be able to prioritise your efforts on the most suitable jobs for you.
Don't start researching vacancies until you are clear about what you want and need from the job that will launch your career, even if you're studying a vocational degree and looking into a specific profession. Consider issues such as: your definition of job satisfaction, location, training opportunities, salary, personal interests, your current skill level and what you definitely don't want to do. If you can't describe for yourself what interests you in the world of work, you won't be able to articulate that to a recruiter or potential employer.

Quality above quantity

Remember, this says "above", it doesn't say "not". Don't be panicked by the economic news into applying for everything and anything. Your health and grades will suffer if you overstretch yourself. Start with your long-term vision and focus your efforts on the right jobs for you. Certainly you'll have to work hard (successful applications usually take days of work), but you'll be working on the right areas.

Differentiate yourself

You've already demonstrated that you're capable of learning and undertaking new tasks – university and school proved that. What potential employers are interested in is what makes you tick? How are you unique and do you describe your unique potential?
Even if you're heading for a technical role that applies your degree, your competencies, such as leadership, problem-solving or collaboration, are still important. In your applications, include examples where you demonstrated these core behaviours, for instance, through volunteering, holiday jobs, work placements or study.

Get organised

Successful applicants are never surprised by deadlines and can always find their notes when required to deliver at a phone interview. Complete applications well within deadlines to give yourself review time; it's astonishing how many people deliver material that has not been proofread, with an hour to go until the deadline.
Try buddying up with someone targeting a different industry and help each other critique applications. Always review any interview or assessment centre immediately afterwards too: take some notes on what went well, what went less well and what you'll learn for your next application. You'll see your interviewing skills and confidence grow as you get more experience. For example, one of my coachees last year decided to dress up for every phone interview. She had all her notes ready on the desk and felt confident in her interview suit. It might sound silly but it put her in the frame of mind for success.

Spread your net wide

While still applying point one, be creative in your jobseeking. SMEs are offering far more graduate entry career development nowadays. Look across the market to see if roles outside the milkround could work for you.

http://careers.guardian.co.uk/getting-on-career-ladder-2013
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Scoring a job: Interview preparation


Scoring a job: Interview preparation

The Independent's student guide to snagging that first job

SOPHIE WARNES Author Biography
 
 
TUESDAY 15 JANUARY 2013
 
 
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Have you made your an awesome CV yet? Simple, but so many people have mistakes in their CVs or don't spend as much time as they should on them. Have a look at our handy guide to creating a killer CV and cover letter. This should tell you everything you need to know about writing a readable, useful and appealing CV.
Once you’ve bagged yourself an interview, you need to get your thinking cap on and start preparing.
Get to know the company inside out
You need to get into the vibe, or at the very least, get good at pretending to be really interested in what the company does. Remember that you’re competing with other people who might have more experience than you. Get a feel for what the company does, and how it achieves that. What do they do that makes them unique? Ask yourself honestly: why are you applying for a job with them and not another company? What do they do that you really like? What could they improve on? Identify their competitors. Is there anything their competitors do well that they could try and replicate? This sort of information is really useful for you to have in mind; employers like graduates who are innovative and come up with solutions. You might also want to look at the industry more broadly - is there legislation about to be pushed through that will drastically affect that sector?
Read and re-read the job specification
Simple stuff, but there’s no point going to an interview off the cuff and having no idea of the kinds of things they might ask you. If you read the job/person specification, it should mention the kind of skills or attributes they want their new employee to have. Use that to figure out what kind of questions they might ask, and think of ways to answer it. For example, if they say that you need to be a team player, you should think of a scenario where you’ve played a key part in a team, and how you helped to make that project or team a success. Which leads onto the next point nicely…
Write out real life examples you can use
You need to have a notepad with a go-to list of examples of scenarios where you have proved that you have a certain skill or ability. It can be from work, from university, or even in an informal context. Think of scenarios where you’ve proved you have the following: communication skills; leadership skills; initiative; problem-solving skills; organisational skills; commitment. Some of these skills and examples might already be highlighted in your CV, but it doesn't matter if you say it again. It’s also a good idea to try and think of examples where things have gone wrong – don’t be too eager to share them at your interview, but if you don’t have a ‘bad’ story where something didn't go quite to plan, some employers might be suspicious - they know that nobody is perfect, and it's best to own your mistakes.
Go through it with someone
Do a mock interview with someone else! Two heads are always better than one – if you have someone around who has a spare half an hour, explain to them the job you’re going for, and give them potential questions to ask you. They might be able to come up with some good questions for you as well. Doing a mock interview helps because rather than having it written down, you get the opportunity to talk it over with someone, and see how confident you are at reeling off your experiences quite easily.
Always ask questions
At the end you’ll get a chance to ask questions. Never let it go by! Asking questions may seem irritating but actually it shows you’re interested in the job, and that you’re engaging in a conversation rather than being interrogated. Before your interview, start writing down really simple ones like “Is there a uniform?” “What kind of hours am I expected to work?” “Who do I answer to?” – then think of other things that you want to know about your potential job. The interviewer might answer these for you in the course of the interview, but make sure that you at least get out a notepad and ‘check’ to see if you have any questions that are unanswered. If not, explain to them that you had questions but that they’ve answered them. They’ll be pleased that you were keen enough to really think about the job. If you're feeling confident, you could also ask the interviewer about them and their career; how did they get to that position? What's the company like?
What happens if you don't get the job?
Sometimes, even if you have a storming interview, you won't get the first or even the second or third job you interview for. This isn't necessarily a reflection of your ability to do a job; sometimes employers will cut their list down to two or three candidates, and they cannot choose, so pick an arbitrary reason to employ one person. The person that gets the job over you may live closer, which means they're less likely to be late. They may know someone who works at the company already, so they will fit in more easily. Don't let rejection dishearten or discourage you because it's not necessarily that you are not good enough. Times are tough, and you need to be resilient and determined in order to get a job as a young graduate.
Popular questions and ideas to think about
  • How did you get here/how do you plan on coming in to work? (If you live far away)
  • What are your strengths/weaknesses?
  • Give me a scenario where you’ve worked in a successful team
  • Tell me about a time when you’ve worked under pressure
  • Talk me through a time when something went wrong and the steps you took to correct it
  • Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
  • What made you apply for this job?
  • Where else have you applied for a job?
  • Why should we hire you?
  • Describe yourself in 5 words
  • What do you like doing outside of work?

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/career-planning/getting-job/scoring-a-job-interview-preparation-8231208.html
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Dodge the Milkround: graduate schemes are not the only route


Dodge the Milkround: graduate schemes are not the only route

This is the time of year that finalists are starting to panic. It's not just the fast-approaching end of university; it's also the pressure to land a good job. But, says Sabina Usher, there are credible options beyond the Milkround

SABINA USHER
 
 
MONDAY 14 JANUARY 2013
 
 
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From inside the university bubble, it can often feel like Deloitte, KPMG, Accenture and the other corporate campus-giants are the only brands with genuine job opportunities for graduates out there. In fact, there seems to be two options; either get a place on a formal scheme built on buzz words like ‘rotation’ and ‘leadership programme’, or become destitute.
With Christmas gone and a New Year beginning in earnest, I’m sure you’ve been subject to the inevitable familial interrogation, ‘so what are your plans for after university?’ Cue collective sigh. Yes- the prospective post-university abyss combined with the current economic and employment climate is enough to drench any student with woeful anxiety.
And who could blame students? When your desk is covered in branded goods from stress balls to wall charts, and your social calendar is crammed full of presentations by corporate top-dogs, it’s understandable that students feel their futures must be with big companies.
As an undergraduate at York last year, I certainly got caught up in the Milkround panic. Christmas and Spring terms were a frenzy of applications and cover letters for roles I didn’t quite understand or really know if I wanted to commit the next two years of my life to. The endless time-consuming applications began to take over my life with night time activities becoming absorbed by psychometric tests and waxing lyrical about my potential value to ‘x’ graduate scheme. And all for the inevitable email no graduate wants to receive: ‘many thanks but your application will not be taken forward at this time.’
Saturated labour market
With the graduate labour market saturated and an average of 73 gradsapplying for each role, this predicament will be becoming all the more familiar with graduates. By this time last year, I hadn’t had any success and spent the Christmas holidays trying again. The deadlines for companies I thought were my first choice had passed but a second round approached and so I kept researching. All this on top of the inevitably hectic rush of third year finals; otherwise known as the pinnacle of three years hard work.
Students should be focusing on these defining academic achievements that will stay with them for life, not on time absorbed looking for jobs. There are lots of other ways into almost all sectors. Having gone through the Milkround in my final year, I know how much time it takes. I also know that big corporations propagate a myth that there will be no valuable opportunities later on. The reality is different.
Grad schemes are great if you aspire to work for the Big 100 or know which sector you want to go into. But the culture of work has changed in recent times, with more flexibility and fluidity within the labour market that seems to make the rigid grad scheme infrastructure seem rather anachronistic.  Who knows what they want to do at 21? If you do, I envy you.
Ever thought of an internship at an SME?
The minority of students win a ‘golden ticket’ graduate scheme path- so what’s all the fuss about? At the beginning of 2012, SMEs accounted for99.9 per cent of all private sector businesses in the UK with an estimated £3,100 billion in turnover. Yes, I was surprised as well. Graduates have a huge amount to offer SMEs looking to expand, and many offer internships. Yet, the SME route does not immediately spring to mind for most graduates considered their post-university career prospects.  
Internships have got some pretty bad press of late, the term becoming synonymous with unpaid labour. I don’t need to regale you will the current rhetoric of Britain’s unpaid graduate army being exploited due to their desperation to gain work. The law is irritatingly vague on the issue and boils down to subjective semantics; under employment law, people who work set hours, do set tasks and contribute value to an organisation are ‘workers’ and are entitled to the minimum wage. Thus, it is left up to companies to decide what can be defined as ‘valuable’ or a ‘worker’ or what constitutes ‘set hours.’ 
But times are changing. Internships are no longer just two weeks of work experience at your dad’s law firm refining skills in photocopying and barista training. Furthermore, an internships bill set for 01/03/13 hopes to ban the advertisement of unpaid internships and, if it passes, will go some way in tackling this cultural problem. Paid internships undeniably need to become the exception and not the norm. But more than this, internships need to become an acclaimed alternative to the institutionalised grad scheme.
Internships offer an opportunity to ‘test-drive’ a potential job or sector. They are a great way of gaining valuable work experience in a variety of sectors as well as determining whether a chosen sector is for you. Internships at small and medium businesses are likely to offer you key training and work alongside key employers. They are personal, varied and you’re likely to be given greater responsibility which can then go on to further your career in larger firms with highly transferable skills, if that’s an aspiration.
Graduate schemes are great for the right person, but they not the only option out there. I ‘test-drove’ three different internships after my graduation. Yes, these gave me valuable transferable skills and work experience and furthered my career prospects. But more importantly, I’ve completely changed my career ‘plan’ as a result.  Now, months later, I am working at an SME called Instant Impact, a company that unites fast-growing SMEs with the very best students and graduates. As someone who personally experienced the Milkround nightmare, is somewhat satisfying to finally be helping my contemporaries find their way into the big bad world of ‘careers.’ Be patient, have faith and try new things. Something better might be just around the corner.
Sabina Usher is a History graduate from the University of York.

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/career-planning/dodge-the-milkround-graduate-schemes-are-not-the-only-route-8450927.html
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